With three nominations for Vera Drake, the acclaimed director Mike Leigh took a deep breath and set off, again, for the Oscars. Here is his brilliant account of a week in which he partied with Clive Owen, Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty alongside the rest of Hollywood's A-list.

Brad Pitt's punching himself in the face, legendary producer Robert Evans is being shaved by a naked woman, and now Warren Beatty's on the phone... Gaby Wood meets Sarah Morris, the British-born painter and filmmaker who's turning the cameras on Hollywood.

In 1973, Sandra Hochman's documentary about the women's movement, featuring Warren Beatty and Shirley MacLaine, caused a sensation. So why has it spent 30 years locked in a vault? Douglas Rogers asks her.

As a young actor in 1950s Hollywood he was just another pretty boy, but no one was more admiring of Warren Beatty than Beatty himself. On the set of his first film his director Elia Kazan ordered the crew to cover all the mirrors in the make-up area because he spent so much time gazing at his reflection. Yet, for all the self-adoration, there was a calculation, a fascination with power - whether in the bedroom or the boardroom - that would lift him above being just another star.

Warren Beatty stripped the American presidential campaign of its only hope of a patina of glamour yesterday when the movie star finally made it plain that he will not be a candidate. Beatty indicated that three 'f-words' were behind his decision: a desire to retain his freedom; an unwillingness to make a fool of himself; and the fear that he might do more to damage than promote the liberal causes he supports.

The year is 2003. Tensions between North Korea and the United States have escalated, in no small part due to the new alliance between Pyongyang and Baghdad. Secretary General Kofi Annan brokers an emergency summit meeting between leaders Kim Jong Il , Saddam Hussein, and President Warren Beatty.

There were Beatty 2000 stickers, standing ovations and even a speech that began, "My fellow Americans," but there was no announcement that Warren Beatty would be standing for his country's highest office.